Mixerz Gourmet Cocktail Mixers

Style and Substance In Cocktail Mixers

EDITOR’S NOTE:
This line has been discontinued by the manufacturer.

CAPSULE REPORT: Gourmet cocktail mixes are rapidly growing in popularity, because they let us easily re-create the same upscale cocktails we enjoy at our favorite bars—while kicking off our shoes, not having to get home after having two or three, and avoiding that hefty bar tab. We had such a good time mixing cocktails with Mixerz. This all-natural line makes delicious cocktails, most in less than a minute. The most time-consuming chore is cutting the fruit garnishes! Each Mixerz variety can be mixed with club soda for a virgin cocktail. The beautiful bottles make attractive house gifts, with or without the matching bottle of spirits.

Good food comes from Napa Valley: wine, cheese, olives, jams and now...cocktail mixers? While the goods may, in fact, be “handcrafted in Napa Valley,” in microbatches, the fruits and juices that go into them are actually sourced from around the world. The mangoes come from Colombia, key limes from, presumably, the Florida Keys and Cosmo cranberries from colder and damper places than Napa. But ship it in to Napa, mix it up, and you’ve got an excellent collection of cocktail mixers. In fact, the Bloody Mary mixer goes straight into our Hall of Fame (“The Best Bloody Mary Mixes”), and the restrained Cosmopolitan may convince us to return to what is too often an overly-sweet drink.

The cocktail recipes are embarrassingly simple: In most cases, just add one or two ounces of Mixerz to two ounces of vodka, tequila or rum. Add a wedge of lemon, lime or other garnish and the party begins. (Of course, you can make up pitchers in bulk before the party begins, and leave yourself free to hang with your guests.)

One thing that Mixerz has going for it over all other gourmet mixer brands: If you’re into style, these bottles are impressively designed. Sleek and elegant, they’d fit right in with a set designer’s concept of penthouse chic.

To keep ourselves awake while testing many of the cocktails, we used V2 Vodka, a superpremium vodka with a caffeine and taurine energy booster (it’s like having Red Bull built in, without any added energy drink flavor).

Varieties of Mixerz

There’s everything you need to have a party. Some of the flavors combine to make still more cocktails, as you’ll see in the recipes below.

Bloody Mary

Buy lots of this mix: Not only is the Bloody Mary very popular (it’s the second-best selling cocktail mix in America, after Margarita); while most cocktails require no more than two ounces of Mixerz, for your Blood Mary, you’ll need three times as much per cocktail. This peppery Bloody Mary mix is so good, we’d be hard-pressed to make a better one ourselves. Mixed in with the rich tomato flavor, you can taste the tangy Worcestershire sauce and the zesty celery seed. The taste and texture from the horseradish is just perfect. If you like a spicy Virgin Mary, you’ll drink the whole bottle before the evening’s over.

Recipe Ingredients

6 ounces Mixerz Bloody Mary

2 ounces vodka

Celery stalk

Directions

Add ingredients to an 12-ounce
highball glass, filled with ice

Garnish with a celery stalk

Mixerz Bloody Mary is more than bloody good—it’s one of the best Bloody Mary mixes we’ve ever had!

For a change of pace, make a Bloody Maria by substituting tequila for vodka, and add a lime wheel.

For a Bloody Bull, add two ounces of beef bouillon to the Bloody Mary recipe, and skewer one or two small cubes of filet mignon on top of the glass, instead of the celery stick. Read Bloody Mary: Variations On A Theme, which has more Bloody Mary recipes, plus the history of the Bloody Mary.

Cosmopolitan

Think pink, think easy. We like this Cosmo mix. It’s a more elegant style, lacking the heavy sweetness of some other mixes. The toughest part of creating this Cosmo was making the orange peel garnish. After you’ve had the first one or two, you can switch to a Virgin Cosmo, mixed with club soda or ginger ale.

Ingredients

1-½ ounces Mixerz Cosmopolitan

2-½ ounces citrus vodka

Orange peel curl or orange slice

Directions

Combine Mixerz and vodka in a
cocktail shaker over ice.

Shake and strain into an 8-ounce
martini glass.

Garnish with an orange peel curl or
an orange slice.

Cosmopolitan Mixerz: pretty in pink.

For a variation, make a Cosmopolitan Spritzer by combining 2 ounces of Mixerz Cosmopolitan and 1 ounce of Mixerz Margarita in a 12-ounce tumbler half-filled with ice. Top with club soda. Stir gently; garnish with a lime wheel.

For a Pomopolitan, shake 1 ounce Mixerz Cosmopolitan, 2 ounces Mixerz Pomegranate and 2 ounces of vodka with ice and strain into a 5-ounce martini glass. Garnish with a slice of orange.

Mango

While we enjoyed our sweet, summery mango martini, this is the one cocktail where we felt we could have as easily purchased mango nectar. The Mixerz recipe is essentially mango purée, thinned with filtered water to good mixing consistency—although natural color enhancers are added to get that exquisite orange color. We wouldn’t put the damper on a purchase: The beautiful bottle of Mixerz looks much better in a social setting than an open can of mango juice. For a less sweet martini, you can cut the amount of Mixerz Mango in half.

Recipe Ingredients

2 ounces Mixerz Mango

2 ounces vodka

Fresh mango or lemon twist

Directions

Shake Mixerz and vodka with ice in a cocktail shaker

Strain into a 5-ounce martini glass

Garnish with a slice of mango or a twist of lemon

Colorful Mixerz Mango.

Make a Mango Spritzer by combining 2 ounces Mixerz Mango, 1 ounce Mango Margarita and 2 ounces white rum in a 12-ounce tumbler half-filled with ice. Top with club soda, stir gently and garnish with a lime wheel.

See the next section for a Mango Margarita recipe.

Margarita

The Margarita never goes out of style—and it’s the overwhelming number one mix.

For a Cadillac Margarita, reduce Mixerz to 1-½ ounces, use 1-½ ounces Gold Tequila and ½ ounce top-shelf triple sec. Garnish with a lime wedge and a slice of orange, no salt.

Mixerz Margarita mix has mucho lime flavor.

For a Pomegranate, Mango or Cranberry Margarita, use 2 ounces of Margarita Mixerz and 1-½ ounces of Pomegranate, Mango or Cosmopolitan Mixerz plus 1-½ ounces tequila. Garnish with a lime wedge, salt optional.

Mojito

This one takes a little more effort—you actually have to add two more ingredients to make the cocktail work. But the Mojito is so trendy, few people care. Refreshing and minty, one could be seduced into having a second and a third. But, drink responsibly—have a glass of Dry Soda, developed as an alternative to cocktails.

Recipe Ingredients

2 ounces Mixerz Mojito

2 ounces white rum

Club soda

Fresh mint

Directions

Pour ingredients into a 10-ounce collins glass half-filled with ice.

Top with club soda, stir gently.

Garnish with a mint sprig.

Take a trip to the tropics with Mojito, the classic rum cocktail of Cuba.

For a Cranberry, Mango or Pomegranate Mojito, mix 1 ounce Mixerz Mojito, 1 ounce Mixerz Cosmopolitan (for Cranberry), Mango or Pomegranate, and 2 ounces of white rum in a 10-ounce collins glass half-filled with ice. Top with club soda; stir gently and garnish with lime and a mint sprig.

Make another hot drink, the Caipirinha* (pronounced kai-puh-REE-nya), the national beverage of Brazil, and pour 2 ounces of Mixerz Mojito and 2 ounces of cachaça* into a 10-ounce collins glass half-filled with ice. Give a good squeeze of fresh lemon and top off with water. Stir gently and garnish with a lemon wheel.

*The name translates to “peasant’s drink” (“caipira” is the equivalent of “hillbilly”), but if that’s the case, those peasants drank well! The Caipirinha is made with cachaça (ca-SHA-sa), Brazil’s most popular alcoholic beverage. Like rum, it is distilled from sugarcane, but from the juice of the sugarcane, whereas rum is distilled from molasses.

Pomegranate

Don’t believe that the “antioxidant benefits” of pomegranate translate into healthier cocktails—just enjoy this flavor for its sweet, purple self. Yes, this is the sweetest of the Mixerz cocktails; but the pom flavor is good, pom is trendy, the purple color is vivid and jewel-like, and the color evokes passion for romantic occasions. Start with a Pomegranate Martini. For a less sweet martini, cut the Mixerz Pomegranate in half.

Recipe Ingredients

2 ounces Mixerz Pomegranate

1-½ ounces vodka

Orange

Directions

Combine in a cocktail shaker over ice

Strain into a 5-ounce martini glass

Garnish with a slice of orange

Pomegranate Mixerz: purple passion.

There’s Pomopolitan recipe in the Cosmopolitan section, and a Pomegranate Mojito recipe with the Mojitos.

Sour Apple

Still going strong is the Apple Martini, or Appletini. It’s easy to make with Mixerz Sour Apple.

Recipe Ingredients

2 ounces Mixerz Sour Apple

2 ounces vodka

Granny Smith apple

Directions

Shake Mixerz and vodka with ice in a
cocktail shaker

Strain into a 5-ounce martini glass

Garnish with a Granny Smith apple
wheel

Next, spice things up with a Spiced Apple Martini. Substitute spiced rum for the vodka and add it along with the Mixerz and one teaspoon of superfine sugar (or simple syrup) into a 12-ounce tumbler half-filled with ice. Stir and garnish with a cinnamon stick. For another variation, see the Sour Apple Cosmo, above.

Sour Apple Mixerz: makes an easy apple martini.

Now that you’ve got the goods to become your own expert mixologist, pick the date for your next cocktail party. It will be effortless.